IRISH coach John Conlan has defended his claims over Michael O’Reilly’s training attendance, after Irish boxing chiefs appeared to rubbish suggestions that the Portlaoise fighter hadn’t been seen for eight weeks prior to leaving for Rio.
News broke that O’Reilly had failed a drugs test the day before the Olympic Games started, with Conlan slamming him for “embarrassing the country, embarrassing boxing”. He also claimed the middleweight was a seldom seen man in the weeks leading up to the Irish team’s departure.
O’Reilly, whose coach is Pat Ryan, the president of the Irish Athletic Boxing Association (IABA), hasn’t made any public comment on Conlan’s claims.
However, IABA hit back straight away, stating that O’Reilly (right) had been with the team in Azerbaijan in June, and had also been dealing with injury and illness.
The RTÉ panel also dismissed what Conlan said, with former super-bantamweight world champion Bernard Dunne saying the coach’s statement was “not true”.
But, speaking just minutes after seeing his son Michael on the wrong end of a controversial decision against Russia’s Vladimir Nikitin on Tuesday, Conlan hit back
“I have a calendar with every date that guy was in camp but I’m not going to talk about that,” he said.
“Let the IABA put whatever they want out but I was there in the camp. Bernard Dunne wasn’t there.
“Ten days that guy was in the camp with me, that was it. Ninety-six days to Rio, I seen him 16 days.”
The statement from IABA said that O’Reilly had trained at Portlaoise Boxing Club while recovering from a knuckle injury and the flu, but Conlan wasn’t having it.
He added: “It was more than eight weeks. It was wrong.
“Ask his coach where he was because any time a coach asked where he was, we got a sick note.
“If some boxer gives me a sick note, I can’t take a chance on him but that’s another story. We need to leave that one alone.”
It was an understandably emotional time, having just watched his son’s Olympic dream being shattered, but Conlan also didn’t hold back when asked what the future held for reigning World and European champion Michael.
“I’ll probably lose my job over this but I don’t care,” he said.
“He’ll never box amateur again if I have anything to do with it.”
In response to the Irish coach’s claims on O’Reilly, IABA chief executive Fergal Carruth again questioned Conlan’s timeline, but said the matter would be investigated during a full review of Ireland’s High Performance programme which will take place after the Games.
Carruth said: “If you count down the days, Michael O’Reilly was in Azerbaijan from 2-26 June, and then he was in Rio with the Irish team from 19 July until he was sent home on 9 August.
“The IABA will be conducting a review of not only the Olympic Games but also the previous four years within the High Performance Unit in order to put in place a plan going forward and also to put in all support necessary for the High Performance program to ensure success at the Tokyo Games.
“Any matters including attendance of our boxers within Irish training camps will be included in this review.”
